This Heart of Mine (45 page)

Murrough wiped his eyes, for he had laughed so hard that he’d begun to cry. “I should like to indulge you, poppet, but Mother, having been penned up these many months in a hot city, will be anxious for the open sea and might decide to go adventuring once more unless I can offer her an incentive to return home. Your marriage will be just the incentive. I’ll wager that when Mother hears you’re already a wife, even possibly with child, she will wish our ships had wings. You’re very dear to her, Velvet.”

“And she to me, Murrough. Aye, you had best tell them. It will give Papa time to calm his famous temper. ’Twill no doubt be winter once again when you return to England, dearest brother. You’ll send a messenger by the fastest horses, won’t you? I will feel so much better just knowing that Mama and Papa are safely home again.”

“Aye, dear one,” he answered her, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand.

“How are Joan and the children?” she inquired as she served him a large plate of eggs poached in marsala and cream, which had been placed on a thick slice of pink ham. “It was thoughtless of me not to ask you last night.” She poured a tankard of brown ale and handed it to him.

“They are fine, but I left Henry angry at me for leaving him behind this time. Joan, however, is grateful. We promised the boy he could go off with the O’Malley uncles this spring, which has mollified him somewhat. He’ll not find the Spanish Indies too tame, I’ll warrant, although I will admit I made it sound safer to Joan than it actually is. Still, the O’Malleys will see that he comes to no harm, and the lad has to learn if he’s to make the sea his life. He has no great love for book learning like our brother Ewan.”

Velvet nodded and attacked her own plate with vigor. For several minutes they ate in silence, for neither were considered poor trenchermen by those who knew them. They ate with enjoyment and an obvious appreciation for the subtlety of the sauce that
covered the eggs. Both were therefore surprised when the door to the room burst open and Padraic stumbled in, white and drawn.

Velvet looked at Lord Burke and then her hand went to her throat as she spoke but one word. “Alex?”

“An accident,” burst out Lord Burke. “Oh, God! It was awful!”

The room dimmed before her eyes, but with a monumental burst of willpower Velvet refused to faint. Her voice, when she managed to find it, was ragged with fear. “What happened, Padraic? For God’s good mercy, tell us!”

“We arrived at Brightwaters just as Lord de Boult did. Essex was already there with the queen’s physician. The doctor said the queen had told him to go with Robert Devereux that morning. God’s nightshirt! Is there nothing she doesn’t know?”

Velvet’s eyes were round with shock.

“What happened, Padraic?” repeated Murrough tensely. “Get on with it, laddie!”

“Both Alex and Lord de Boult agreed to Essex’s suggestion that the swords be tipped with wax balls. The duel began, and both men fought well, but soon Lord de Boult began to tire. Suddenly the wax ball flew from his blade tip, and he stumbled. There was no time for Alex to get clear. It was an accident, but the blade pierced him. Oh, God! I’ve never seen so much blood! Essex cried out, ‘Jesu, man, you’ve killed him!’ When they carried him from the field, I rode back to tell you, Velvet. I couldn’t let them bring him home to you like that … not without warning you.” He began to weep. “Oh, God, littlest one, I am so sorry!”

Velvet sat very still in her chair, her beautiful face devoid of both expression and color. Neither of her brothers spoke, and the only thing that could be heard in the silence was the slow and reassuring tick of the mantel clock. Then suddenly, without warning, she began to weep wildly. The tears surged down her face in an abundant and fast flow. Within moments her eyes were swollen with her unassuaged grief. “Mama,” she wept piteously. “I want my mother!”

For a moment Murrough was shocked. Was Velvet still just a child that she called for their mother? Then it hit him. She was no child but a woman finally grown. Alex was dead, and she had already accepted it. Now she called for someone she loved as deeply to comfort her in her unbearable grief. He was quickly at her side, and she cried into his shoulder as he murmured soft, unintelligible sounds in an effort to comfort her.

After a few minutes her tears ceased, and, looking up at him, she whispered brokenly, “Take me with you, Murrough. Please take me with you!”

“Velvet!” Padraic Burke was finally coming to his senses.

“Have you no respect for Alex? You must bury your husband, Velvet. You can’t leave him!”

She turned her head to look at him, and he saw the terrible grief in her green eyes.

“Why can I not leave him, Padraic?” she said bitterly. “He left me! I pleaded with him not to involve himself in this meaningless duel with Lord de Boult, but no! Honor must be served, which I could not possibly understand being but a simple woman.” Her voice was thick with pain and scorn. “Well, this much I do understand, Padraic. I am widowed three months after my marriage, and for what? Because two grown men could not admit either to themselves or to each other that a whoring jade had lied?” She began to weep once more.

“You must bury him, Velvet,” Padraic repeated helplessly.

“Bury him?”
Her voice was suddenly hoarse with horror. “I can’t bury him, Padraic! Enclose him in some dark tomb? Dear God, no! Besides, he would not want to be buried here in England. Let his men take his body back home to
Dun Broc.
He was the last of the Earls of BrocCairn. There will be no heirs of his body, and that much is all my fault!” She looked desperately at Murrough and begged once again, “Take me with you, brother! I won’t make the long trip to Scotland, and what is there for me here? I cannot face the pity of our family or the court. I will go mad for certain! If there is any kindness in you, Murrough, take me with you. I will die here alone. Oh, Alex, why?
Why?
I do not understand, and I never shall!” Then she wept once more, falling back into her chair, her face in her hands, her slender shoulders wracked by heartbroken sobs.

Murrough watched her, and a deep sigh rent his frame. It was imperative that he leave this day. It was already a week past his intended departure date. He would just reach the Indian Ocean in time to catch the favoring winds before they reversed their course, making it difficult, if not impossible, to cross that body of water. Still, how could he leave her? He made an attempt to reason with her. “Velvet, I would take you with me, poppet, but I must go now, today. Mother’s life depends upon my swift return. If I delay even another day I could lose the favorable weather I need to get across the Indian Ocean safely. I cannot wait for you!”

“I can go now, today,” she said. “My things are already packed for the trip north.”

“But you’ll need lightweight garments for the Indies, my dear. The climate is terribly hot and steamy.”

“Pansy knows where everything is,” she reassured him.

“Please, Murrough, I beg of you! Don’t leave me behind. I need Mother!”

He glanced at the clock upon the mantel and then made his decision. It was madness, but her frame of mind was precarious just now, and he believed she would be better off with him away from all that was familiar. The pain of her grief would be no less, but it should ease faster in a different setting. “Can you be ready in an hour?”

The tension drained momentarily from Velvet’s body. “Aye, I can be ready,” she said.

“You’re mad, both of you!” Padraic shouted, but Velvet had already run from the room, calling for Pansy.

Murrough shrugged helplessly. “How can I leave her under these circumstances?” he demanded of his younger sibling. “You don’t understand her, but I do. She is just like Mother in that she feels things with greater intensity than the rest of us. She loves with all her being, and she hates and grieves the same way. This grief will consume her here with all her memories of Alex, and if she returns to our dear Dame Cecily at
Queen’s Malvern
that good worthy will baby our sister into a wasting sickness.” Then he glared at Padraic. “You’re sure?” he demanded. “You’re absolutely certain that Alex received a mortal wound, Padraic?”

Padraic Burke looked offended. “Of course I’m certain,” he snapped. “There was blood all over him, and Essex said most distinctly that he’d been killed. They carried him to a nearby house so that the queen’s physician could do his duty in comfort as it was beginning to snow. It’s stopped now,” he finished helplessly.

Murrough put his arm about his brother. “I’m not sure how wise you were to hurry here with the news, but ’tis done now, and I’ve no other choice than to take Velvet with me.”

A short while later a barge pulled away from Greenwood’s small dock and steered a course for the London pool where Murrough’s vessel,
Sea Hawk
, stood awaiting the outgoing tide. From an upper window Padraic Burke watched the barge go and felt a deep sorrow in his heart. Velvet’s chambers were now empty and silent. Then something caught his eye, and, bending, he picked up a dainty glove. Crushing it to his cheek, he smelled the fragrance of gillyflowers and a tear slid down his cheek.

Slowly Padraic turned from the river and, walking to the sideboard, poured himself a goblet of
Archambault
Burgundy. He downed it in three deep gulps and poured himself another. Sitting before the banked fire with both decanter and cup, he drank himself to sleep, for he had had little enough rest the night before and
his exhaustion, coupled with the shock his system had suffered that morning made him all the more vulnerable.

Awaking with a sour mouth some time later, his temples throbbing hurtfully, he saw by the mantel clock that it was well after one in the afternoon. Stumbling to his feet, he made his way downstairs. Alex’s body would undoubtedly be placed in the main room for the mourners.

Willow would probably lay Padriac out in lavender for allowing Murrough to take Velvet, as if he could have stopped either of them. Willow would be furious at Velvet’s lack of decorum, but they would simply have to tell everyone that the widow was too prostrate with grief to attend the funeral and, besides, the body was going home to Scotland. It was a perfectly plausible explanation.

Reaching Greenwood’s lower level, Padraic saw Dugald, the earl’s man, just entering the house, and he hurried toward him. “Have you brought the earl’s body home then?” he asked.

“He’s too badly injured to move right now,” replied Dugald, “but the queen’s physician says he’ll live to be an old man yet.”

Padraic Burke suddenly felt sick. He heard his older brother’s voice demanding,
“You’re sure?”

Finding his voice, he gasped, “Alex is alive? He’s not dead?”

“Dead?”
Dugald looked surprised. “What in hell made ye think that, my lord?”

“The blood,” said Padraic helplessly. “All that blood, and Essex said de Boult had killed Alex. He said it.”

“Essex!” Dugald said scornfully. “What the devil would that gallant know about death? ’Twould take more than just a sword’s prick to kill the Gordon of BrocCairn.”

“Where is Alex?”

“They carried the earl to the nearest house, one owned by a Master Wythe, a silversmith. They dared move him no farther, and he must remain there until his wound is closed so that there will be no danger of it opening and bleeding again. We believed ye came on ahead to tell her ladyship, but when she did not come I was sent to fetch her and to reassure her that my lord will survive though he is sleeping now with the draught the queen’s physician gave him.”

“Jesu!” groaned Padraic Burke. “What have I done?” And then he was calling for his horse and running through the door, while behind him the Earl of BrocCairn’s man stared after him in open-mouthed confusion.

How delicious an instrument is woman, when artfully played upon; how capable is she of producing the most exquisite harmonies, or executing the most complicated variations of love, and of giving the most Divine of erotic pleasures.

—Ananga Ranga

I
t was a hot afternoon, and Jalal-ud Din Muhammad Akbar, emperor of the Mughal empire, sat upon his throne conducting his country’s business. He was feeling bored and irritable. The air in the audience chamber of the Diwan was heavy with humidity, and from the rumblings outside the building another storm was due soon. He sighed as a bead of perspiration rolled down the side of his face from beneath his small, tightly rolled white turban, which had been fashioned to combine both the Muslim and the Hindu modes. It was the season of the monsoon. He could feel the dampness on his wheat-colored skin even through his peacock blue sarcenet trousers, and his gold tunic, which was called a cabaya, was limp. His personal bodyslave leaned over and wiped the moisture from his face. The emperor smiled his thanks to the man, even as he longed for a bath and a cool breeze.